Wednesday, 25 August 2010

Carlo Carrà - The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli

The subject of the work is the funeral of Italian anarchist Angelo Galli, killed by police during a general strike in 1904. The Italian State feared that the funeral would become a de facto political demonstration and refused the mourning anarchists entrance into the cemetery itself. When anarchists resisted, the police responded with force and a violent scuffle ensued.

Carlo Carrà was present. His work embodies the tension and chaos of the scene: the movement of the bodies, the clashing of anarchists and police, the black flags flying in the air. He reflects in a later memoir:

I saw before me the bier, covered with red carnations, wavering dangerously on the shoulders of the pallbearers. I saw the horses becoming restive, and clubs and lances clashing, so that it seemed to me that at any moment the corpse would fall to the ground and be trampled by the horses…